The country grew wilder and more rugged as the newly-mated pair advanced, and as they drew near the foot-hills surrounding Mount Desolation, the bush thinned out, and the ground became stony, with here and there big lichen-covered boulders standing alone, like huge bowls upon a giants' green. Then came a patch of thin, starveling-looking trees, mere bones of trees, half of whose skin was missing. Suddenly Warrigal gave a hard, long sniff, and then a growl of warning to Finn. She would have barked if she had known how, but her race do not bark, though they can growl and snarl with the best, and, besides, have a peculiar cry of their own which is not easy to describe other than as something midway between a howl and a roar. Finn recognized the growl as warning clearly enough, and all his muscles were gathered together for action on the instant; but he had no idea what sort of danger to expect, or whether it was danger or merely the need of hunting care that his mate had in mind. He knew all about it some two seconds later, however.
The starveling trees, with the mean, wiry scrub that grew between them, had served as cover for two lusty males of Warrigal's tribe--cousins of hers they were, as a matter of fact, though she had never known the kinship--both of whom had waked that day to the fact that Warrigal was eminently desirable as a mate. Now, in one instant, they both flew at Finn, one from either side of the trail on which he trotted with Warrigal. Warrigal herself slid forward, a swiftly-moving shadow, her brush to the earth, her hind-quarters seeming to melt into nothingness, as the jaws of her cousins flashed behind her on either side of Finn's throat. Then, when there were a dozen paces between herself and her new mate, she wheeled and stopped, sitting erect on her haunches, a well-behaved and deeply interested spectator.
Finn suffered for his ignorance of what to expect, as in the wild all folk must suffer for ignorance. It is only in our part of the world that a series of protecting barriers has been erected between the individual and the natural penalties attaching to ignorance and wrong-doing. Some of these barriers are doubtless sources of justifiable pride, but in the wild the confirmed loafer, for example, the vicious and idle parasite, is an unknown institution. The same practically holds good even of humans, when they live close to Nature in a stern climate, as, for instance, on the Canadian prairie; but never in great cities, or other places from which Nature is largely shut out.
The penalty Finn paid was this, that he was cut to the bone upon his right and his left shoulders by the flashing teeth of his mate's stalwart young cousins. They had both aimed for the more deadly mark, the throat, but were not accustomed to foes of Finn's great height, and had not gauged his stature correctly as he trotted down the trail. Their own shoulder-bones were a good foot nearer the earth than Finn's, and his neck towered above the point their jaws reached when they sprang. Wolf-like, they leaped aside after the first blow, making no attempt to hold on to their prey. And now, before the keenly watchful eyes of Warrigal, there began the finest fight of her experience. Regarding her mate's good looks she had more than satisfied herself; here was her opportunity to judge of his prowess, in a world wherein all questions are submitted to the arbitrament of tooth and claw in physical combat. And keenly the handsome dingo judged; watchfully she weighed the varying chances of the fray; not a single movement in all the dazzling swiftness of that fight but received her studious and calculating attention, her expert appraisement of its precise value. As the fight progressed from its marvellously sudden beginning, her unspoken comments ran somewhat after this fashion--
"He is not so quick as our kind--as yet. He is marvellously strong. He is not smart enough in the retreat after biting. His jaws are like the men-folk's steel traps, when they do get home. He misses the leg-hold every time, and that is surely foolish, for he could cripple them there in an instant. My teeth and claws! but what a neck he must have! It is reckless the way he leaves his great legs unguarded. Save me from traps and gins! Saw dingo ever such a mighty leap!"
In the first moments of that fight the two dingoes were half drunk from pride. It seemed certain to them that they would easily overcome the giant stranger. Indeed, Black-tip, the bigger of the two, who had a black bush at the end of his fine tail, actually seized the opportunity of taking a lightning cut at one of the fore-legs of his cousin in the confusion of a rush in upon the Wolfhound, feeling that it was as well to get what start he could in dealing with the remaining claimant for Warrigal's hand. He counted the Wolfhound dead, and wanted to reduce his cousin's chances in the subsequent fight that he knew would be waged to secure possession of Warrigal. It was sharp practice, according to our standards in such matters, but perfectly justifiable according to the laws of the wild, where the one thing demanded is ultimate success--survival. But, though morally justified, Black-tip was actually at fault, and guilty of a grave error of judgment.
He was backing gradually towards a boulder beside the trail.
Finn took much longer than one of Black-tip's kindred would have taken to realize the exact nature of his situation and to act accordingly; but, as against that, he was a terrible foe when once he did settle down to work, and, further, his mighty muscles and magnificent stature, though they could not justify either recklessness or slackness--which nothing ever can justify in the wild--did certainly enable him to take certain liberties in a fight which would have meant death for a lesser creature. But Finn had been learning a good deal lately, and now, once he had got into his stride, so to say, he fought a good deal more in wolf fashion than he would have done a few months earlier; and, in addition, he had his own old fashion and powers the dingoes knew not of in reserve.
At first, he snapped savagely upon one side only, leaving his unprotected side open to the swift lacerations of Black-tip's sharp fangs. But even then he was backing gradually towards a boulder beside the trail, and the moment he felt the friendly touch of the lichen-covered stone behind him his onslaught became double-edged and terrible as forked lightning.
He was kept too busy as yet to think of death-blows; both dingoes saw to that for him, their jaws being never far from one side or the other of his neck or his fore-legs. But though, as yet, he gave them nothing of his great weight, he was slashing them cruelly about the necks and shoulders, and once--when Warrigal swore by her teeth and claws it was--he managed to pluck Black-tip's cousin bodily from the earth and fling him by the neck clean over a low bush. A piece of the dingo's neck, by the way, remained in Finn's jaws, and spoiled half the effect of his next slash at Black-tip's shoulder. But from that moment Black-tip lost for good and all his illusion in the matter of the stranger being as good as dead.
When the sorely wounded dingo, who had been flung aside as if he were a rat, returned to the fray his eyes were like red coals, and his heart was as full of deadly venom as a death-adder's fangs. His neck was tolerably red, too; it was from there that his eyes drew their bloody glare. He crawled round the far side of the boulder, close to the ground, like a weasel, and, despairing of the throat-hold, fastened his fangs into one of Finn's thighs, with a view to ham-stringing, while the Wolfhound was occupied in feinting for a plunge at Black-tip's bristling neck. It was the death-hold that Finn aimed at, but the sudden grip of fire in his thigh was a matter claiming instant attention; and it was then that the Wolfhound achieved the amazing leap that made Warrigal swear by traps and gins. He leaped straight up into the air, with the sorely wounded cousin hanging to his thigh, and Black-tip snapping at his near fore-leg, and in mid-air he twisted his whole great body so that he descended to earth again in a coil, with his mighty jaws closed in the throat of Black-tip's cousin. His fangs met, he gave one terrible shake of his massive neck and head, and when the dingo fell from his jaws this time, two clear yards away, its throat was open to the night air, and it had entered upon the sleep from which there is no awakening.
Finn was bleeding now from a dozen notable wounds, but it was not in nature that Black-tip single-handed should overcome him, and Black-tip knew it. The big dingo ceased now to think of killing, and concentrated his flagging energies solely upon two points--getting away alive and putting up a fight which should not disgrace him in Warrigal's watchful eyes. He achieved his end, partly by virtue of his own pluck and dexterity, and partly because his smell reminded Finn of Warrigal, and so softened the killing lust in the Wolfhound.
Finn could handle the one dingo with great ease, even wounded as he was, and, because of that smell, he had no particular desire to kill. Indeed, he rolled Black-tip over once, and could have torn the throat from him, but caught him by the loose skin and coat instead and flung him aside with a ferocious, growling snarl, in the tail-end of which there was a note which said plainly, "Begone, while you may!"
And Black-tip, with life before him and desire in his heart where Warrigal was concerned, was exceedingly glad of the chance to bound off into the scrub with a long, fierce snarl, which he hoped would place him well in Warrigal's esteem, though he was perfectly aware that it could not deceive Finn.
Then, when it was quite clear that Black-tip had really gone, having taken all the fight he could stand, Warrigal stepped forward mincingly and fell to licking Finn's wounds, with strongly approving tenderness and assiduity. Her mate had fought valiantly and doughtily for Warrigal, and she was proud of him; proud, too, of her own perspicacity and allurements in having drawn him to herself. A savage creature was Warrigal and a brave and quite relentless enemy, the marks of whose fangs more than one fighting member of her race and more than one powerful kangaroo would carry always. But she was very feminine with it all, and the remarks she murmured to her great grey lord, while her solicitous tongue smoothed down the edges of his wounds were sweetly flattering and vastly stimulating to Finn's passion and his pride.
And then, when between the two busy tongues every wound had received its share of healing attention and antiseptic dressing, Warrigal moved slowly off down the trail, throwing a winsome look of unqualified invitation over her right shoulder to Finn, so that the Wolfhound stepped grandly after her, with assumed unconsciousness of his many wounds, as who should say--
"It is nothing, my dear child; nothing at all, this trivial incident by the way. If there are any more champions of your tribe about, let them come on while I am in the vein for such sport."
But, as a matter of fact, though it was true he would cheerfully have fought all night at his mate's bidding, Finn was none the less glad now to have peace and rest, for the dingo champions' methods of attack were marvellously swift and telling, and the wounds they had inflicted, while not very serious, were certainly numerous and sore.
Immediately below the crest of a sharply rising spur of the great mountain they came upon the entrance to Warrigal's own den, which was masked and roofed-in by the spreading roots of a fallen tree. The mouth of the den was narrow and very low for one of Finn's stature, but he bent his aching body gladly and followed his mate in, to find that the den itself was comparatively roomy and capable of accommodating half a dozen dingoes. As a matter of fact, it had been the den of Warrigal's mother, but it was more than a year now since that mother had fallen to a boundary-rider's gun. The father had gone off to another range with a second wife, and Warrigal's brothers and sisters had each been vanquished in turn and given to understand that this den was now the sole and exclusive property of their big sister.
Finn sniffed curiously all round the walls of the den and, finding them permeated with the scent of Warrigal and with that scent only, he lay down there restfully, stretching himself to the full extent of his great length, and sighing out his pleasure in being at ease. Warrigal sat gravely erect beside him, admiring the vast spread of his limbs. From tip of nose to tip of tail he covered practically the whole width of the den, which was a shade over seven and one half feet. The dingo looked over her mate's wounds once more, giving an occasional lick here and there, and then, with a little grunt of gratified pride and content, she curled herself round, after circling three or four times, and went to sleep under the lee of Finn's mighty hind-quarters, her muzzle tucked under the spreading hair of her tail, and one eye, half opened, resting upon her lord.
Two hours later, Warrigal rose softly and went out to inspect the night. She found the world bathed in a shining glory of silken moonlight; bright as day, but infinitely more alluring and mysteriously beautiful. After gazing out at this wonderful panorama for a few minutes and drawing in information through her nostrils of the doings of the wild, Warrigal sat down on her haunches and raised her not very melodious voice in the curious dingo cry, which is a sort of growling howl. Next instant Finn was beside her, with lolling tongue and sensitively questioning nostrils. She gave him one sidelong look which seemed to say, "You here? Why, what an odd coincidence that you also should have waked and come out here! I wonder why you came!" Not but what, of course, she knew perfectly well what had brought the Wolfhound to her side. She had called of good set purpose, but, in her feminine way, she preferred to let it appear that Finn joined her of his own volition. It may be assumed that the remark she made to him at this point was a comment upon the fineness of the night and the undoubted beauty of that glamorous silvern sheen through which the pair of them gazed out at Tinnaburra.
In the next minute the two began to play together like young cats, there on the sandy ledge of moon-kissed stone that stretched for yards on either side of the den's mouth. Perhaps it was then, rather than in the afternoon hours which came earlier, that Finn courted Warrigal. The stinging of his wounds, caused by the rapid, sinuous movements with which he danced about his mate, seemed only to add zest to his love-making. They were, after all, no more than love-tokens, these fang-marks and scratches, and Finn rejoiced in them as such. He had fought for Warrigal, and was ready and willing to fight for her again. And this his mate was most sweet to him; so deft, so agile, and so swift; so strong and supple, and withal so instant in response to his gallantries. The night air was sweet, too, to headiness, and the moonlight seemed to run like quicksilver in Finn's veins. Certainly, he told himself, this new life in the wild, this life of matehood, was a good thing.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PACK AND ITS MASTERS
When Finn took up his abode in the den of his mate, Warrigal, he entered what was to him an entirely new world, and this new world was in fact one of the most interesting corners of the wild in all Australia. For example--
When Finn and Warrigal tired of their play on the flat ledge outside their den, the moon had set, and in the eastern sky there was visible the first grey hint of coming dawn. In that strange, ghostly light, which gave a certain cloak of mystery even to such common objects as tree-stumps and boulders of rock, Finn saw two unfamiliar figures emerge from the scrub below the spur next that of Warrigal's den, and begin slowly to climb toward Mount Desolation itself. There was a deep, steep-sided gully between Finn and these strange figures, but even at that distance the Wolfhound was conscious of a strong sense of hostility toward the creatures he watched. Their scent had not reached him, because the spur they climbed was to leeward, yet his hackles rose as he gazed at the ghostly figures, whose shapes loomed huge and threatening against the violet-grey sky-line. The Wolfhound and his mate were just about to enter their den, and Finn touched Warrigal with his muzzle, "pointing" meaningly at the strangers. Warrigal looked, and though her shoulder hairs did not rise at all, her lips curled backward a little from white fangs as she indicated that these figures were perfectly well known to her.
The foremost of them was of great length and bulk, low to the ground, and a savage in every line of his massive frame. His tail, carried without any curve in it, was smooth and tapering, like a rat's tail; his chest was of immense depth, and his truncated muzzle was carried high, jaws slightly parted, long, yellow tusks exposed. In general outline he was not unlike a hyæna, but with more of strength and fleetness in his general make-up, more, perhaps, of the suggestion of a great wolf, with an unusually savage-looking head, and an abnormally massive shoulder. From spine to flank, on either side, the strange creature was striped like a zebra, the ground colour of his coat being a light yellowish grey and the stripes black.
This was old Tasman, the Zebra Wolf, who had been turned loose in that countryside six years before with a mate of his species, who had died during the first year of their life in the Tinnaburra. Behind Tasman, burdened with the weight of a fat wallaby which he dragged over one shoulder, marched Lupus, his son, now almost four years old and the acknowledged master of Mount Desolation. Lupus had none of his sire's stripes, and his tail, though not so bushy as a dingo's, was well covered with hair. He was longer in the muzzle and more shapely in the loin than his father. Lupus, in fact, was a half-bred dingo, differing from other dingoes of the Mount Desolation pack only inasmuch as that he was greater than the rest, more massive in trunk and shoulder, more terrible in tooth and claw. His feet were weapons almost as deadly as a bear's feet, by which I mean the feet of the northern and western bear, and not those of inoffensive Koala. His loins and thighs were those of a fleet runner, and his fore-part, in every hair of it, was that of a killer. Tasman was feared on that range rather as a tradition than as a killer; Lupus was feared and obeyed as an actual, living ruler.
It was many months since Warrigal had seen the old wolf Tasman, but Lupus was abroad every night of his life. Also, his eyes, unlike those of his terrible old sire, could face the daylight. All the wild folk knew that Tasman was like an owl by day; light actually hurt him. Lupus was not fond of the light, but he could endure well enough, and kill by it if need be, as was well known. He still shared with his savage old sire the den in which he had been born, deep in the heart of Mount Desolation, and it was stated among the wild folk that he had killed his own mother towards the end of his first year of life, and that he and Tasman had devoured her body during a season of drought and poor hunting. Be that as it may, her blood had given Lupus his rating in the Mount Desolation country as a dingo, and his own prowess and ferocity had given him his unquestioned rank as leader and master of the pack. He had never openly preyed upon the pack, but he had killed a round half-dozen of its members who dared to thwart him at different times, and the manner of their killing had been such as to form material for ghastly anecdotes with which the mothers of that range frightened their offspring into good and careful behaviour. It was supposed that Tasman did not hunt now, and that Lupus hunted for him, but venturesome creatures of the wild, who had dared to climb the upper slopes of Mount Desolation, claimed to have seen Tasman foraging there after insects and grubs; and as for Lupus, his hunting was sufficiently well known to all on the lower ground. And, in the meantime, though Tasman was credited with very great age, there was no creature in that countryside who would have dared to face the old wolf alone.
It was not very much of all this that Warrigal managed to convey to her mate, as they stared out through the grey mist at these strange creatures, but Finn was profoundly and resentfully impressed by what he did gather from her. The shuddering way in which she wriggled her shoulders and shook her bushy coat before turning into the den for rest after their long play in the moonlight, told Finn a good deal, and it was information which he never forgot. It did not seem fitting to the great Wolfhound that his brave, lissom mate should be moved to precisely that shuddering kind of shoulder movement by the sight of any living thing, and, now, before following her into the den, he stepped well forward to the edge of the flat rock and barked fierce defiance in the direction of old Tasman and his redoubtable son. Lupus dropped his burden in sheer amazement, and father and son both faced round in Finn's direction, and glared at him across the intervening ravine. It was a fine picture they saw through the ghostly, misty grey half-light, which already was getting too strong for Tasman's eyes, over which the nictitating membrane was being drawn nervously to and fro as a mark of irritation.
Finn was standing royally erect.
Finn was standing, royally erect, at the extreme edge of his flat table of rock, from which the side of the gully sloped precipitately. His tail curved grandly out behind him, carried high, like his massive head. That head was more than fourteen inches long, and when, as now, its jaws were parted to the expression of anger and defiance, and all its wealth of brows and beard were bristling, like the hair of the grandly curving neck behind it, and of the massive shoulders, thirty-six inches above the ground, which supported that neck, the sight of it was awe-inspiring, and a far more formidable picture than any dingo in the world could possibly present. Tasman and Lupus glared at this picture for fully two minutes, while themselves emitting a continuous snarling growl of singular, concentrated intensity and ferocity. This savage snarl was not the least among their weapons of offence and defence. Its ferocity was very cowing in effect, and had before now gone more than half-way towards deciding a combat. It introduced something not unlike paralysis into the muscles and limbs of the lesser creatures of the bush when they heard it; in hunting, it might almost be said to have played the part of a first blow, and a deadly one at that. On this occasion, it merely served to add wrath, and fierceness, and volume to the roar of Finn's deep bay.
As the light in the east strengthened, old Tasman's eyes blinked furiously, and his snarl died down to a savagely irritable grunt, as he turned again to the mountain. Lupus bent his head, still snarling, to pick up his heavy kill, and together the two trailed off up the mountain side to their den, full of angry bitterness. They had not eaten since the small hours of the previous day, and both were anxious to reach the twilit shelter of their stony mountain den, where they would feed before sleeping, among the whitened mouldering bones that told of six long years of hunting and lordship, bones which probably included those of Lupus's own dam. No creature of that range other than themselves had ever seen the inside of this den and lived. No man had ever set his foot there, for the climbing of Mount Desolation was a thankless task for all save such as Tasman and Lupus, who liked its naked ruggedness and its commanding inaccessibility, high above the loftiest of the caves inhabited by other wild folk of the countryside.
Barking fiercely at intervals, Finn watched the savage lords of Mount Desolation ascending, till their forms were lost among the crevices and boulders of the hillside, and then, with a final, far-reaching roar, he turned and entered the den, where Warrigal sat waiting for him, and softly growling a response to his war-cries. This defiance of the admitted lords of the range was not altogether without its ground of alarm for Warrigal; its utter recklessness made the skin over her shoulders twitch, but it was something to have a mate who could dare so much, even in ignorance. Long after Finn had closed his eyes in sleep, Warrigal lay watching him, with a queer light of pride and admiring devotion in her wild yellow eyes.
The afternoon was well advanced when Finn and Warrigal finally sallied forth from their den in quest of food, though in between short sleeps they had lounged about in the vicinity of the den several times during the morning, and Finn had accustomed himself to the bearings of his new home, and taken in the general lie of the land thereabouts. Now, before they crossed the patch of starveling bush which skirted the foot of their particular ridge, they were approached by Black-tip and two friends of his, who were also preparing for the evening hunt. Warrigal growled warningly as the three dingoes approached, but it seemed that Black-tip had spread abroad news of the coming of the Wolfhound in such a manner as to disarm hostility. It was with the most exaggerated respectfulness that the dingoes circled, sniffing, about Finn's legs, their bushy tails carried deferentially near the ground. Seeing the friendliness of their intentions, Finn wagged his tail at them, whereat they all leaped from him in sudden alarm as though he had snapped. Finn's jaws parted in amusement, and his great tail continued to wag, while he gave friendly greeting through his nostrils, and made it quite clear that he entertained no hostile feeling towards his mate's kindred.
After this the dingoes took heart of grace, and there was a general all-round sniffing which occupied fully ten minutes. Finn stood quite still, his magnificent body erect and stretched to its full length. Occasionally he lowered his head condescendingly to take a sniff at one or other of the dingoes, who were employed in gravely circling about him, as though to familiarize themselves with every aspect of his anatomy, with eyes and noses all busy. During this time Warrigal sat a little to one side, her face wearing an elaborately assumed expression of aloofness, of lofty unconsciousness, and of some disdain. Finally, the whole five of them trotted off into the bush, and then it was noticeable that Warrigal clung closely to Finn's near side. If any small accident of the trail caused a change in the position of the dingoes, Finn instantly dropped back a pace or two, and a quick look from him was sufficient to send the straying dingo back to his place on the Wolfhound's off side. There was no talk about it; but from the beginning it was clearly understood, first, that Finn was absolutely master there, and, secondly, that place on his near side was strictly reserved for his mate, and for his mate only; that no creature might approach her except through him. The manner in which Finn's will in this matter was recognized and respected was very striking indeed; it meant much, for, from the point of view of the three dingoes, Warrigal appeared at that time in the light of an exceedingly desirable mate, and one for whose favour the three of them would assuredly have fought to the last gasp that night but for the dominating presence of the great Wolfhound.
Finn appeared to lead the hunting party, but its real leader that evening was Warrigal, who had taken note on the previous day of the exact whereabouts of a big mother kangaroo. She now desired two things: a good supper and an opportunity of displaying before the three dingoes the fighting prowess of her lord. Black-tip had had his lesson, as various open wounds on his body then testified, but it was as well that his friends should see something of Finn's might for themselves, apart from the information they had clearly received. That was how Warrigal thought of it, and she knew a good deal about mother kangaroos as well as dingoes. She knew, for instance, that they were more feared by dingoes than the "old men" of their species, and that, even with the assistance of his two friends and herself, Black-tip would not have thought of attacking such prey while there were lesser creatures in plenty to be hunted.
In due course Warrigal winded the mother kangaroo, and conveyed instant warning to Finn and the others by a sudden checking of her pace. Silent as wraiths between the shadowy tree-trunks then, Finn and the four dingoes stalked their prey, describing a considerable circle in order to approach from good cover. To Warrigal's keen disappointment, they found as they topped a little scrub-covered ridge that the mother kangaroo was feeding with a mob of seven, under the guidance of a big, red old-man. Then she conceived the bold plan of "cutting out" the mother kangaroo from the mob, and trusting to Finn to pull her down. This plan she conveyed to her fellow-hunters by means of that telepathic method of communication which is as yet little comprehended by men-folk. One quick look and thrust of her muzzle asked Finn to play his independent part, and another, flung with apparent carelessness across her right shoulder, bade the three dingoes follow her in the work of cutting out.
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